World Trust

There is a growing awareness that our current school-to-prison pipeline is a national civil rights crisis.

Our U.S. history is rife with the mistreatment and exploitation of people of color and poor people in ways that result in social, economic and educational isolation.

Historical needs for cheap labor have fueled myths, stereotypes, and racist ideologies that have led to discriminatory laws, policies, practices and court rulings that continue to fuel racial violence that are reflected in our current prison justice system.

To create a world that is racially equitable and just, we need coalitions comprised of multi-racial participants who can truly hear each other. We need to form a healthy way of interacting. Organizations and infrastructure cannot function effectively without a shared foundation of trust, openness, and mutual respect. In our film, Light in the Shadows: Staying at the Table when the Conversation about Race Gets Hard, we see that positive change arises when we deeply understand ourselves, and can be open to creating a rapport with others.

Our summer of #JusticeandRacialHealing concludes this week. As we wrap up, here are several ideas that can help you develop mutually beneficial relationships within social justice advocacy work that supports change.These tips — similar to the themes we've explored this Summer from Light in the Shadows — are timeless.

Notice inherent patternsin the systems that polarize us. To change something we have to be able to name it. Observe the extreme conservatism, us-versus-them rhetoric, and individualism, as opposed to the calls for radical connection and communal organizing.

Last week, we posted an interview with Light in the Shadows participant Penny Rosenwasser. Today, we share our interview with Dr. Intisfar Shareef, another woman who sat at the film’s roundtable and discussed race and its impact. If you’re not familiar with Light in the Shadows, watch this trailer.

The women featured in the film were social justice advocates from varied racial and professional backgrounds. Shareef, an African American woman, says she became politically aware of herself in relationship to institutions through early experiences in the Nation of Islam. Intisar had already participated in World Trust’s first film, The Way Home: Women Talk About Race in America before arriving on the set of Light in the Shadows. Here, she reflects on her time on set and the long path our society has taken to be able to discuss these issues more openly.

The women featured were social justice advocates from different racial and professional backgrounds, who spoke openly about their personal experiences with systemic racism.

A major shift occurs when an African American participant, ericka huggins, challenges a white Jewish participant, Penny Rosenwasser. Rosenwasser refers to the fight against racism as her “work.” huggins pushes back, saying that the fight toward racial equality is her life experience, not work, or something that can be released at will.

World Trust spoke to Rosenwasser, more than 15 years after that conversation took place, about her experience during filming. Spoiler alert: She was, and is, just fine. And she hopes more people can open themselves up to conversations that inspire real transformation.

One reason we keep coming back to the conversation of our first film, Light in the Shadows, is because the issues still resonate. Conversations about race often break down between white people and people of color. Whether you saw the film in the early 2000s or have just been introduced to it, the message is clear: We’re doomed to repeat the cycles of oppression if we don’t heal.

Expanding Dualistic Framing

The world is not an either/or place, even though it’s our tendency as humans to respond to life dualistically. We make decisions in ways that are hierarchical and linear. It is critical that we think systemically and develop our analyses through the observation of the patterns and relationships that are always embedded in complex issues.

In cross-racial conversations, we need participants to do their own internal work—dealing with their individual understanding of how racist systems were created and operate while understanding their own emotions and biases. We also need the group to do external work—looking at how structures and institutions can create systemic barriers and imbalances. Doing both, we can create new connections, revisioning relationships and structures.

It is internal work for each individual, but it is collective internal work that supports the external work. We must remember that, so we can be responsible for how our individual traumas and understandings impact the way we operate in the world.

Recorded in 1998, our founder, Shakti Butler, intended to use this shorter film (45 mins) to raise funds for the production of other World Trust projects. In the movie, a conversation unfolds among ten American women from a range of backgrounds.The women lived in the Bay Area and came from African, Arab/Middle Eastern, European, Jewish, Asian, Latina and multiracial descent. They spoke frankly about the social and emotional impact of engaging with the world within the racial identities attributed to them.

The participants all came to the table with decades of social justice advocacy behind them. These were skilled communicators accustomed to the language of race and inequity, unconscious bias, social constructs, patriarchy, transformation, collective humanity, and healing. They shared personal anecdotes and past pain. They challenged one another and showed support. It turns out the film’s greatest achievement was also its perceived flaw. The conversation in the film—and for those after who viewed the film—consistently broke down between white people and people of color. When the credits rolled, white women viewers hated the movie. People of color loved it.

Last Summer, we offered a series of free film clipsabout racism and its impact on our society. To this day we hear how deeply the clips supported meaningful and nuanced conversations.

To continue to support your conversations, today we launch the Summer of #JusticeandHealingNOW! In the coming weeks we'll be offering free film clips on JUSTICE and HEALING,right to your inbox each week.

The clips are from our upcoming film (coming in 2017) and explore:

How do you define the meaning of justice?

Why is addressing trauma such an important component of justice?

How do our current structures create disproportionate outcomes for people, young people in particular of color as well as the poor and disenfranchised?

Why and how do our current structures need to be changed if we want to ensure that children are treated well?

The world is crying out for healing - healing of inequitable actions and of unfair, unjust systems. And, equally important, the world is crying out for the deep internal healingthat allows us to more effectively come together to educate, organize and work towards a world that works for everyone. In community we can heal, support and renew while sharing the analytical tools and facts that allow us to be effective.

At World Trust, for the last 20 plus years, we've found our films to be effective pathways to building community and capacities for working towards racial equity. Watching films and clips allows individuals to simultaneously self-reflect and learn while offering a common touchstone for conversations with others to discuss our deepest needs, hopes and strategies for creating a more just world.

This summer we hope these film clips from our upcoming film will move, inspire, and invite you to engage in conversations with others - family members, friends, colleagues and community members. Feel free to share the clips as widely as you wish. We also will be #ConnectingGoodWork by featuring some like-minded organizations that work for an end to cycles of pain and suffering via our Facebook page. We can't wait to connect with you in the coming weeks!

Watch this clip, ask yourself the questions we offer, share this with your community and have a conversation that may lead to meaningful connection and change:

1. What is your response to the short clips you have viewed. What are your thoughts and feelings?

2. What conversation might you have regarding some internally driven step(s) you might take in terms of expanding yours and others beliefs, understanding and/or skill sets in terms of healing, analysis and movement towards furthering racial equity? Another way to approach this is to develop and explore new strategic questions for yourself and other?

3. What external actions might facilitate more equitable outcomes in terms of institutional or structural changes that would?